We're number 45! (Maybe)

Assembly awards Arts Council $2 million bonus, raising national ranking

Sergio González of Writerz Blok with a mural created by the community organization and Lincoln High School students. Writerz Blok receives some funding from the California Arts Council under the council's "Creating Public Value" program. Photo: Troy Orem/ Enlace

Sergio González of Writerz Blok with a mural created by the community organization and Lincoln High School students. Writerz Blok receives some funding from the California Arts Council under the council's "Creating Public Value" program. Photo: Troy Orem/ Enlace

The California Arts Council this week received a $2 million bonus from the State Assembly. With an earlier effort to substantially boost council funding through legislation stalled and never brought to a vote, Assembly Speaker John Pérez awarded the one-time grant through a discretionary account. The additional support brings the council’s total budget to approximately $7 million.

“This investment in the arts shows that Speaker Pérez and a supportive Governor recognize the importance of the arts to our State’s economy and the needs of our creative workforce,” said Wylie Aitken, chair of the California Arts Council, in a statement.

“This is a positive first step to gain support for measures that will increase California’s arts funding and investment in future budgets.”

The increase apparently moves the California Arts Council out of the bottom rung of state arts support nationwide, when calculated on a per capita basis. California placed 48th (with approximately 18 cents going to the arts for every person in the state) in a preliminary study for 2013-14 conducted by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. (Kansas was number 49 and Georgia 50.)

The addition should move California into 45th place, just ahead of Washington, Arizona, and Wisconsin, depending on final figures. (Minnesota, at $6.36 per citizen, is at the top of the list, with Hawaii a distant second.)

According to an Arts Council statement, all of the additional funding will go to “direct services for local communities” and none to administrative costs.